


The Waters and The Wild

by thegoddessinzerogravity



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: two short stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoddessinzerogravity/pseuds/thegoddessinzerogravity
Summary: Annabeth has rarely needed Thalia to take care of her, but she could still try.





	The Waters and The Wild

They'd been in May Castellan's house for less than an hour and Thalia already wanted to leave.

Just the thought sent a ping of _wow Thalia, ungrateful much?_ through her, and she automatically reached down to scratch at a patch of exposed skin on her thigh. The injury had luckily not itched too much since it had been wrapped in bandages, but the sensation of the cloth was pressed uncomfortably tight against her skin, and there was a small impulse to tear away the confinement.

Something warm touched her elbow, breaking her concentration, and she glanced over to see a panicked-looking Annabeth with another charred cookie in one hand and grasping for Thalia's attention with the other. She wiggled the blackened cookie at her, and Thalia followed her line of sight back to the woman herself.

Luke's mother gave her a dewy-eyed smile, and Thalia made an attempt at a grin back. After a few seconds, her gaze became unnerving, and Thalia looked away, pretending to smooth over Annabeth's hair to as an excuse to not have to look at her anymore.

This didn't help either, as May sighed "Oh, you've got such lovely blonde hair, dear. You should let me braid it. Do you know how to braid hair?" The last question was directed at Thalia. She shrugged her shoulders and wished Luke would hurry up talking to his dad. "I dunno."

"It's easy, dear. I'll show you." Annabeth barely had time to send Thalia another alarmed look before May grabbed a section of her hair and ran her fingers through it. Annabeth winced as she caught onto and dragged several of tangles.

Thalia wanted to pull Annabeth up onto her lap, or maybe under the couch (or better yet: right out of the front door and taking Luke with them) but May had given them food and water and supplies; she couldn't just outright reject her. So instead she hesitantly took a hold of the remaining section of Annabeth's hair and gave May another forced smile. "Now what?"

"You just split the hair into three parts and start layering them over each other- see how this strand is on the far right? Just move it over so it's in the middle, and now move the part on the far left over, and do that over and over-"

Annabeth winced again and Thalia thought _I swear I'll find a way to make this up to you, Annie_ and did her best to not pull on her hair. Annabeth hair was short these days, just brushing the tips of her shoulders. It used to be much longer, before she'd managed to get some clump of monster goo, dirt, and street garbage stuck it in and Luke had had to cajole her into letting him cut it off with a pair of safety scissors. After the original ball had been cut away, it had taken some effort and sniping on both their parts before it was even again.

May finished her braid much faster than Thalia, and watched her clumsily complete her side of Annabeth's hair. She had messed it up somehow, one of the strands was too thick and the whole thing crimped to the side. Despite how obviously terrible hers looked, May beamed anyway when she finished. "You've got it! You can braid hair anytime you like now."

She then seemed to notice that Annabeth's hadn't eaten her cookie, and immediately gestured for her to put it in her mouth. "Eat up, dear! You're far too skinny for a young girl." Annabeth's face scrunched up, and she carefully took a small bite out of her burnt cookie.

May nodded encouragingly, and Thalia glumly looked down at her mediocre braid again. Luke probably could have done a better job, and he would have found some way to make Annabeth smile while he did it, too. Thalia was good at protecting Annabeth, at taking care of her and keeping her alive. Luke was the one who could make her laugh.

"I always wanted a little girl, you know, before I had Luke. And he's such a lovely boy that I forgot all about that, but now that you two are here it's like I have two baby girls!"

Thalia felt an immediate jolt in her stomach. They had to get out of here, _now._

 

* * *

 

Thalia was still burning with anger after the ceasefire with Prometheus, and had stomped back into the Plaza to find a distraction. She'd tended to her wounded Hunters for a bit, before deciding she should check in on Annabeth again. That stab wound had been _bad_.

She walked into Annabeth's room at the Plaza to find her trying to put on her armor. She was pale and sweaty, and the bandages wrapped around her injured shoulder had slipped loose. Thalia leapt forward to grab her, remembering at the last moment to seize to unhurt side. 

" _Di immortales_ , what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," grunted Annabeth. "My shoulder's just a little sore, that's all. I just need to get the bandages back in place and I'll be fine."

"Yeah, right. You don't get stabbed through the shoulder with a poison dagger and then just "feel a little sore" afterwards. We're going to find Solace." Annabeth protested, trying half-heartedly to get out Thalia's grip, but it wasn't long before she'd located Will Solace in the Plaza lobby and dragged Annabeth to a halt in front of him. He was leaning against one of the armchairs in the lobby, talking to one of his siblings from the Apollo cabin.

Will looked surprised to see them. "Hi, Annabeth. I thought you were still resting." Annabeth rolled her bad shoulder and glared at Thalia. "I don't need to rest. I'm fine."

"She is _not fine_ , you can tell just from looking at her." Annabeth opened her mouth to argue again, but Will reached over to examine her injury, and whatever she was going to say was swallowed up by a gasp of pain. (Thalia resisted the urge to mutter 'told you'.)

"So, what's wrong with her, Solace? I thought you healed the poison from the knife."

"I didn't "heal the poison", exactly. The strain of venom on the knife was a very rare kind, and it can't be gotten rid of the way I would a weaker strain. What I did was essentially watering down the venom so that it wouldn't be strong enough to kill you. Instead of the full effect, you might have some loss of feeling or uncontrollable trembling in your extremities, blurry vision, and your heart might be racing uncomfortably at times. "

Annabeth frowned as Will listed her symptoms. "So, I'm still poisoned."

"I figured diluting it was a better option than watching you die, Annabeth. And as for what's wrong right now-" He shrugged. "There's not much I can do until the venom naturally leaves your system. Try drinking a lot of water. And you can have a little more nectar if the pain becomes unbearable."

"What would it take to get me back to full strength now?"

Will raised an eyebrow. "Godly intervention. For now, you just have to keep getting fluids into you and for the love of Apollo, Annabeth, a full night's sleep."

Thalia had seen too many of her loved ones hurt in the past few years, but seeing Annabeth like this was different. Maybe it was just seeing someone else taking care of her, that familiar competitive streak rushing through her again. She'd felt like this during her abduction by Thorne too, a furious impulse to get to her as soon as possible and make whoever hurt her pay. Just to prove she could.

Thalia gently nudged her good elbow. "Hey, let's get you back to your room, okay? See if you can squeeze in a few hours of sleep." She had never felt any particular nurturing impulse, but her usual style of affection wouldn't work right now. There was no one to fight, no one she could direct lightning at, no one she could punish for hurting someone she loved like this.

Annabeth looked poised to argue again, but instead her shoulders sagged and she visibly deflated. "Okay." 

She allowed Thalia to guide her out of the room while she did her best to net let her bump into any corners. The war was still going on outside the Plaza, but for now she could at least guarantee Annabeth a few hours of peace from the storm.

**Author's Note:**

> I had both of these stories floating around in my head for a while, but they both seemed too short and random to post individually, so I tried putting them together with a common theme. 
> 
> I haven't written PJO fanfiction in a long time, so any feedback you have for this would be really appreciated!
> 
> The title is from William Butler Yeats' _The Stolen Child_ , because that poem in many ways reminds me of Thalia.


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